Overview

Optical manipulation using optical tweezers has been widely adopted in physics, chemical engineering and biology. While most applications and fundamental studies of optical trapping have focused on optical forces resulting from intensity gradients, we have also explored the role of radiation pressure, which is directed by phase gradients in beams of light. Interestingly, radiation pressure turns out to be a non-conservative force and drives trapped objects out of thermodynamic equilibrium with their surrounding media. We have demonstrated the resulting nonequilibrium effects experimentally by tracking the thermally driven motions of optically trapped colloidal spheres using holographic video microscopy. Rather than undergoing equilibrium thermal fluctuations, as has been assumed for more than a quarter century, a sphere in an optical tweezer enters into a stochastic steady-state characterized by closed loops in its probability current density. These toroidal vortexes constitute a bias in the particle's otherwise random thermal fluctuations arising at least indirectly from a solenoidal component in the optical force. This surprising effect is a particular manifestation of a more general class of noise-driven machines that we call Brownian vortexes. This previously unrecognized class of stochastic heat engines operates on qualitatively different principles from such extensively studied nonequilibrium systems as thermal ratchets and Brownian motors. Among its interesting properties, a Brownian vortex can reverse its direction with changes in temperature or equivalent control parameters.

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